Though there has been a lot of discussion in the news about who gets to make decisions about and for women these days, a new product is promising to relieve women of at least one "complicated" choice: what they drink. Little Black Dress Vodka's mission statement is to simplify the lives of the women it wishes to serve (or rather, be served to): "Too many people are intimidated by complicated cocktail recipes and ingredients. We wanted to design a brand all about women, accentuating ease and superb taste."
The company's press release announces that the brand is by women, for women (the concept, production, legal, brand management and finance heads are all women, according to the press release), and it's great to see female entrepreneurs going after a major share of the market -- women, after all, make 80 percent of household purchasing decisions. But it's hard to see why a group of women running their own liquor company (women who have arguably already reached some level of success in the liquor market) would imply that the "people" intimidated by complicated recipes are actually just one kind of people: the half of the population with an X chromosome.
Little Black Dress Vodka is only the latest alcohol brands to specifically target women with tired promises of ease, low calories and the cache of showing your "good taste" -- even while implying that women don't have the "taste" to discern between good and bad liquor without help.
Here are some other alcohol campaigns targeting women, evaluated based on their understanding of what women want.
SLIDESHOW: What Women Want, According To Alcohol Companies:
